Globally dense, our ailing nation
makes one weep for sheer frustration
thoughts and dreams grow numb.
Tech-addled students scroll on phones,
‘midst scent of android pheromones,
wafting digital dumb.

Pop-culture, narcissist unkind
dispenses with the human mind
which, failing further, falls behind
the grimly global curve.

We read, in writing on the wall
arithmetic’s impending fall
while numbers loiter in the hall
to get what they deserve.

ENQUIRY, tagged as D.O.A,
a sheeted stiff, is wheeled away
her mourners left to grieve.
entitled maiden, full of sass,
LIBERTY begs a bathroom pass
her bladder to relieve.

When zit-faced rebels run the show
the dismal ratings plummet low;
a vulgarized cartoon.
Descending to unfathomed levels,
Ignorance applauds her devils
calling out their tune.

PATRIOTISM, tarred and feathered
headless, claws its cage untethered
foul, unloved, unfree:
Another casualty of time
which fell for want of noble rhyme;
to water FREEDOM’s tree.

CURIOSITY, half asleep,
now stirs and murmurs from the deep
uninterested, untaught.
She grows yet duller in her ways
returning to her ocean daze,
(her schools of fish uncaught).

HISTORY, dormant, lies in dust
a narrative no man can trust
a book no scholar reads.
Events unstudied as designed
wherein the heart of humankind
for want of context, bleeds.

DEMOCRACY degenerates
until God wills and activates
a nation’s drive to learn.
Curricula will be made void;
disheartened teachers unemployed,
their wisdom fit to burn.

You think the past was less obtuse?
Less prone to youthful thought-abuse?
Perhaps…  back in the day.
And though it may have been the same.
this poet opts to place the blame
on digital delay.

My girlfriend called me up last night
from the other side of the bed
I told her she was being ridiculous
when she could just text instead

Take an harp, go about the city,
thou harlot that hast been forgotten;
make sweet melody, sing many songs,
that thou mayest be remembered.
                         Isaiah 23:16  (KJV)

Morrison, Hendrix and Janis the J.
(with others lost tripping along the way)
continue to enlighten young stoners,
adolescent existential loners
who hold them as holy and dig their writ
in billows of ****-smoke. Listen to it:
Hendrix and Joplin and Morrison, man
were part of some cosmic, like, master-plan
true prophets—thus sayeth The Lizard King.
High as kites, their disciples hear them sing
suburban anthems to teen perdition
sirens of drug-addled sixties vision.
pockets continue to empty for discs
while taking somewhat calculated risks.
Should vomitous overdose be esteemed
with visions that actual prophets dreamed?
These anointed cherubs of sad excess
can never illuminate, much less bless
a nation of youth who have lost their way
and can't even choose which download to play.
Morrison, man—that dude was so profound
he broke on through to that state where I'm bound...
Moon-struck drummers, now ghosts of dubious name
live on, in pounding out their spectral fame;
exploding dirigibles flown too high
and blown to pieces in Lucifer's sky.
Such riffs and licks and solos and visions
should force us to some unkind decisions
wherein we ask how free we really are
when enslaved to a devil's fallen star.

No book of rules and regulations
To warn the jar holds just one quart
So all the pushing of the liquid
Will not fit a gallon in
And I will have to mop the spill

Verses spelled on ***** sidewalks
Written in 3 shades of chalk
Embellished with fantastic flowers
Only end up walked across
And smudged from recognition
                        ljm

Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah blah

Goals
Area managers
Deadlines

Blah blah blah
This is her life

Lady next to me
Blah black blabbing

Andre's team
Blah blah blah

Gabby
Has been in the role
For 6 and 7 months

Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah